The Portable Labyrinth
by Joy Kathlyn
Summary: Portable Swamps were not always swamps, they once took a short turn towards myths. Greek myths. Like the Labyrinth. Those myths. Professor Binns was just amazed that someone actually payed attention in class for once. Written for the International Wizarding School Championship.


Written for the International Wizarding School Championship

School: Ilvermorny

Year: 1

Theme: Hermes- the prankster god

Prompt: Main, Fred and George [characters] Second, Labyrinth [setting]

Word Count: 2,546

I own nothing you recognize.

* * *

History of Magic was unquestionably the most boring class at Hogwarts. The Weasley twins firmly agreed on this point, and had made it their mission to use the class as time to craft their newest pranks. This was a rather considerable undertaking, given that most people fell asleep during the class. Just the sound of Binns' voice put even the most attentive Ravenclaw to sleep in no time.

On this day in particular, Fred and George had taken up residence in the back of the room, setting up a wall of text books so no one could see what they were doing. What they were doing behind the wall would have drawn attention after all. They weren't idiots.

_What_ they were doing, came in the form of a cauldron with a happily bubbling mixture inside. It gave off a green glow that reflected on to the twins' faces that would have been a dead-giveaway, provided of course, that one of their classmates roused themselves long enough to become curious of what was going on in the back of the classroom.

Fred and George were getting very excited about this particular potion. They had set it up weeks ago, with a notice-me-not charm on the cauldron, tending to it during every history class. It was a more important use of their time than to listen to Binns and risk falling asleep. And soon the hard work would pay off! This potion, would soon become the base for a new invention that would soon become a Portable Swamp!

The tests done over the summer had gone perfectly, and so they had made this batch of their Portable Potion to test full scale. All that was left to do was to add the ingredient that would allow the prank to take its intended shape.

They were so close. Fred pulled out the small vial containing the bit of swamp from his robes. He reached to pour it in when they heard, "... of mischief."

That single, incomplete line from the ghostly professor, dragged the twins' attention and interest from their project to the teacher. "Can you repeat that please, Professor?" said George.

The man looked away from his notes on the blackboard, out into the room of slumbering teenagers. His eyes narrowed a fraction before answering. "Hermes was the greek god of travelers, thieves, messengers, astronomy and mischief. Please pay attention , while knowing the ancient greek gods is as not significant as more modern events, they still come up in exams from time to time."

One of the twins nodded, his eyes sparkling in interest. "Can you tell us more about Hermes, Professor?" By now, they had both pulled down a book in front of them so they could see the ghost better.

"If you are interested, than I suppose it wouldn't hurt," he droned, "Very well. Hermes was the messenger of the gods himself, often getting other gods out of trouble. However, he was a troublemaker himself, who as a young child stole a flock of cattle from one of his half brothers, Apollo, the god of the sun. Hermes owned a pair of winged sandals, that he used for flying and carrying messages." The man turned back to his notes. "Now as I mentioned, Apollo was the god of the sun…"

At the change of topic, the twins rebuilt their wall of books and immediately started conferring.

"A god of mischief! What a wonderful thing to have!"

"We should do some research on this Hermes. I bet he's a wonderful prankster."

"I wonder if the library has anything on him?"

"The library has everything, my less-handsome twin." The Weasley who had not spoken snorted before grinning widely at his also grinning twin.

* * *

Their trip to the Hogwarts library had proven fruitful, and they had also found other greek myths as well. The myth of the Labyrinth for example. One of the twin' new favorite stories, better even, than Beedle the Bard. The ancient greeks knew what they were doing. The Labyrinth had been built to be impossible to get out of and at the center, there was a Minotaur, a creature that was half-human and half-bull. They had speculated that such a creature might actually exist, because flying horses were mentioned in some myths and _they _were real, but there was no way for them to find out.

Despite their luck with learning about the Minotaur, they still had myth-related plans. Prank plans to be exact.

They had sent an owl to their brother Bill about a week ago, asking if he knew where to find a piece of a labyrinth. They had been a little uncertain about whether or not to ask him, as he might tell their mother, but they had decided to take the risk and ask. Bill was always a good sport about the pranks, as long as no one was hurt anyway.

No one was going to be hurt. Even if they had found a real Minotaur, they would never play a prank where people would be hurt. Pranks were an art form that was meant to lift people's spirits and make them happy, not be harmful.

Fred jumped out of his seat and ran over to the window of the empty classroom they had claimed, and George followed to see what had caught his twins' eye. A rather large sand-colored owl was flying rapidly towards their window. The twins dodged out of the way just in time, as the owl shot through the window and almost hit the back wall. It managed to avoid its crash landing by doing a flip in midair and stretch its wings out like a parachute.

The owl came to a shaky hover and landed firmly on one of the chairs the twins had just vacated. One of the boys approached the chair and saw a small package attached to the creatures foot.

George carefully untied the parcel from the owl and Fred poured the messenger a dish of water. The poor thing looked exhausted. It had reason to be, if they were right about what the owl was carrying.

Unwrapping the package was a bit of a chore. It was caked in a layer of fine sand and mud, and the knots twine used to close it were pulled so tightly that George had to perform a cutting charm on it. The paper fell open to reveal a chunk of rock and a letter. The twins grinned at each other. They carefully unfolded the letter and Fred took a deep breath and made to read it aloud:

"_Dear Fred and George, I hope this letter actually reaches you, unlike the last one. Percy's owl made it fine, however I decided to send my package with my own owl and send Hermes back in a few days. He needs the rest. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you want a chunk of a labyrinth, and I've decided that I'm not going to ask why you want it. Just don't tell Mum. This brick in particular is from a college of mine from Greece. He says he found it on a dig in Crete. Should be close to what you are looking for. Just be careful, test what you made before using it, and make sure no one gets hurt. Love, Bill."_

The two redheads looked at each other and grinned widely. They had not expected for this to go so well. And they haven't even gotten started!

They chipped off a piece of the stone and tossed it into the bubbling green potion from the week before. One of them stirred the cauldron with a large wooden spoon. As he mixed, the green liquid shifted to a gold parchment color. The other twin took a drop of the mixture and let it fall to the floor of the room. From the droplet exploded and miniature version of the Labyrinth.

The twins shared a look between them. And from the hallway outside, if there had been any passerbys, the unfortunate soul would have heard wicked laughter echoing from abandoned classroom 16B.

* * *

It was a very normal day at Hogwarts. Classes had finished for the day and many students were heading to dinner. It was also a rather warm day, without a cloud in the sky. Because of this, there were some students who didn't bother going inside for dinner, instead sitting outside on the grounds, enjoying the sun.

Unnoticed by most of them, the two most troublesome Weasley children were arranging sets of vials between them. They were sitting between the lake and the Forbidden Forest, a stretch of land where most students were unwilling to go.

"If you take the Portables to the Great Hall, we'd had a great effect."

"But it might crush people. I say we do it in the Entrance Hall."

"Ok, then you can place it. Where should the other one go? The front courtyard?"

"I rather like that. Even if they figure out how to get past the first maze, they'll still end up in another Labyrinth."

"You set the timer, right?"

"Yes, they would wear off about two and a half hours after we place them." They nodded to each other before separating the vials into two piles and getting up to walk off.

One froze. "I almost forgot!" he pulled two pairs of woven sandals out of his robes and handed one of the pairs to his twin. "We started this whole idea off with Hermes, we should end it with Hermes."

The other knelt down to tie the sandals to his feet. They had little wings attached to the sides that fluttered every few seconds. "Sometimes you can surprise even me, brother. One would think you're not my twin at all," He snickered.

They walked to where the strip of land they were on met with the rest of the grounds and began to walk up to the school. It was on this trip back that a few people spotted the twins and their bizarre sandals. However, it escaped the notice of most. The twins split up when they reached the courtyard, one staying behind and the other going inside.

* * *

It had been a normal day for Albus Dumbledore. He had done paperwork, done some research about wards, read an issue of the Transfiguration Today magazine and held a staff meeting. It had been a rather productive day, without any interruption. He gazed out across the sea of happily chatting students. Nearly all of the teachers had come down to dinner that afternoon, pulled from their offices on one of the first nice days of the year to enjoy the sunshine. Even Cuthbert had come down, despite the fact that being a ghost resulted in not being affected by the nice weather or not being able to eat food. Interaction was always particular coming from the man that had been at Hogwarts since before even Albus' time as a student, but it was nice seeing the old ghost doing something other than lecturing or grading papers for once.

Albus turned to his meal, and raised a forkful of mashed potatoes to his lips when the ground began shaking. The utensil clattered back onto the plate as he stood up and pushed his chair back. The shaking was growing more violent now. A fragment of a memory flew into his mind of a former muggle-born student trying to educate her classmates in earthquake safety during a particularly slow day in Transfiguration. What had she mentioned? He recalled that she made her friends curl up under their desks to avoid parts of ceiling that might fall. As he made to get under the table, the shaking stopped abruptly.

He looked up at the hall and the entrance immediately caught his eye. The door the the Great Hall seemed to be walled in. He hurried down the stairs and down the aisle between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. The door now had a corridor attached to it, rather than the Entrance Hall.

Albus felt a slight breeze lifting his hat. He looked up, only to see one of the Weasley twins hovering above him on winged sandals.

" , please come back down to solid ground," he said. "I'm sure you'd love to explain what's going on." He felt Minerva come up beside him.

The boy grinned at them. "Well, this is a Portable Labyrinth. We've recently perfected the formula and wanted to try them out. Don't worry that you'll be stuck forever though," he sang, "it will wear off in about two and a half hours, and if you manage to make it to the center of the Labyrinth before the time is up, it will disappear!"

There was a pause as he flew off, not staying to hear Minerva say, "Detention for a week !"

Albus called the staff to him to discuss the options they had. The Weasley twins were always thorough with their pranks, so the ways that the young Weasley had stated were likely the only ones. As they talked, some of the more adventurous students had begun to enter the maze, displaying great use of the point me spell.

Several of the teachers wandered over as well, unable to resist the challenge that the Labyrinth posed.

Albus walked through the door and into the maze. It had high sandy walls, although they didn't reach the ceiling and he could see one of the Weasley twins zooming around above them. The spell also seemed to have covered the floor, adding sand oner the stone floors of the hall. He pulled out his wand and performed his own point me spell.

As he continued down the hallway, he noticed ancient footsteps littering the sand. There were new ones mixed in, as it appeared that he was not the first inhabitant of Hogwarts to try this route, but there was still a layer of packed sand under his feet.

He could hear muffled, triumphant shouting from a hall close to him as the Labyrinth dissolved into sand around them, burying them all knee deep in sand. His eyes caught on the front door of the school. While he could see flashes of the blue sky outside, there was a perfect replica of the maze they had just walked through blocking the way out.

Albus raised his eyes to the ceiling, where the two redheads were chasing each other around in circles. At least they appeared to be having a good time. So were the other students, it seemed. They had rushed into the new Labyrinth excitedly. He could hear Minerva shouting in the distance at the twins, giving them more detention and trying to order them to come down.

He felt a cold mass come up to him and looked over to see Professor Binns floating next to him. The ghost was staring up at the flying Weasleys.

"Twenty points to Gryffindor for applying knowledge learned in class," He croaked. The man looked up at Albus. "I've never had two people be so interested in my Greek myths lesson before. It was a little bizarre. Nice to see they learned something." He gestured to the room at large, specifically, the Labyrinth and the flying sandals.


End file.
